


For A Moment I Have Lost Myself

by asemic



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dermatillomania, Half-hearted sex, Healing Sex, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Skin picking, excoriation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 16:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16519703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asemic/pseuds/asemic
Summary: John Irving gnawed, Edward Little sighed.





	For A Moment I Have Lost Myself

**Author's Note:**

> Entirely inspired by dottore_polidori's headcanon that John Irving suffers from excoriation/dermatillomania or skin picking. Thank you as always for these little flares. And everyone, read 'o sweet cautery, o delightful wound'. 
> 
> Also, much thanks to gargantua01 for reblogging the thigh squeeze scene in 1x07! I replayed it and thought of his hands, and here we are. Heed the warnings.

The days became smears of ink. 

A Wednesday, surely. 

His knuckles cracked, hands red and inflamed. He worked his nail along his cuticle and peeled a sliver away. The sting became a relieving bit of pain, different from the near constant aches in his bones, the joints grinding like glass. Blood this time, a tiny blob he sucked away while his teeth searched for the torn skin to nibble it off. A word must exist for this. The Papist with their communion, is this the Body? Biting harder along the top edge of his thumbnail he snipped. 

He swallowed. 

*

Certainly a Wednesday. 

Yes, a Wednesday. He held himself tall for the rest, the men seeking Command, a Presence, a unified force to bind them together. When in the safety of his tent he allowed himself the collapse, holding himself stiff in his endless layers. Too much, they trapped his sweat, his stink, his leakings. He wished to cry for the release but only shook. 

With the flat of his teeth slipping against his skin he tore at his knuckle; then a shift. His tooth shifted in its gum. A sound escaped, John’s mouth agape, lips covering what would be a black hole, purpled gums. He believed in His will, His words. His fate written to an end whether early or in the twilight years, he knew he’d experience God’s embrace. 

All men die, John Irving included. 

*

Every day was a Wednesday. They hauled a line without a point, endless. John dragged. He counted his steps and lost himself around the mid-two hundreds. Expending so much energy, fueling with scraps. Nothing left, nothing left but bone. To counter these dark thoughts, he found words to bring him life. All will live became the rhythm of his pulls. All will live. 

Beside him Edward heard the chant and joined, a prayer strengthened. 

*

“It is Wednesday.” 

Edward tucked his bag closer to John, neither heat nor comfort passing through the layers. 

“Monday.”

Another sliver bit off, the dry skin scraping along his lip. Game tomorrow, he prayed. A rat, a bony rat. Moss; he’ll lick lichen from jagged rocks. Anything to ease the aches, the growing lead-metallic canned taste. Melt him down and find nothing but birdshot. All this he anchored under the metal when before the men. Optimistic, hopeful; the believer, godly John Irving. 

A shift and his torn thumb was wrenched from his mouth. Like a child he did not fight, his head turned in shame. Edward wiped the saliva and lines of blood from his chewed skin. What a kindness to be granted here, another’s touch. 

“I am fine.”

“We no longer heal properly.” The sigh wasn’t meant to chastise, but he heard the weight of the world threatening to crush Edward. John gnawed and Edward exhaled. “Your teeth loose?”

A gaping maw. “Yes.” 

“This will not keep them firmly rooted.” Edward huffed and squeezed. “I shall keep hold of your hand until this nonsense ends.” 

“It-it will. Please, let me be.” He met resistance when he tried to reclaim his hand. 

“You will nibble to the bone. Amputation is an ignoble end for your digits.” 

“I shall wear my gloves. If it so satisfies, you may pin them to the sleeve to keep them secure.” Something to reassure, a half-hearted promise, yet Edward did not release his grip. Carefully he traced around the torn cuticles, the ripped layers of flesh. They only responded to sharp pain, otherwise numbed along the swollen and inflamed skin. Still, for a moment he believed he felt Edward’s dry finger. “They were handsome, once.” 

“We were as well, all of us.” With a final squeeze, he let go and slipped into his bedroll. “It is only Monday, though at times I believe it doesn’t matter.” 

His nail cut some feeling into his thumb. 

*

“A woman I cared for attended to me in such a manner. She wed a man of industry, his father an early investor in the Stockton and Darlington Railway.” Both the attention and small bead of Edward’s skin balm soothed. The layer ought to be enough to dissuade his twitching; if not then guilt from taking a precious commodity from his friend would give him pause. It didn’t seem that Edward minded the use as he spread the ointment. “She brought my hand to her lips. Her balm smelled like lavender, but soon she did as well.” Edward peered at John from beneath his lashes to share an implying smile. He then slid his fingers to tuck them against his wrist bone, under the cuff. 

John swallowed. 

*

Their fingers linked during the night. Respectful distances did not mean much anymore, but it should not have led to their palms creating a perfect cup. Edward looked peaceful, all his body’s sighs forgotten for a moment. When John squeezed he felt the response; even in his dreams, he sensed. 

Soon their watch would begin, but he gave him a moment more. 

*

“I do not fear it. Death.” 

Edward’s head snapped up and John regretted his statement. “Then why continue? Stretch yourself out on the rocks and allow the elements to scour at you.” 

Worrying a loose bit of yarn on his gloves, John frowned. “I shall not. Chances and opportunities may still arise. Of my end, if it comes here, know I am with God. He shall touch my face and I shall see all.” 

Edward kicked a pile of rocks, their scatter a startled gasp, sharp and unforgiving. “For me to know implies I shall outlive you. I don’t want to think of it. We’ve lost enough.” 

“If it is God’s desire, Edward, then so be it. His guidance is unchallenged. He knows all, including the spark of a man’s heart.”

“And what stokes your heart’s flame?”

Home. To blink and see grass and feel warmth carried through the air, not enclosed in suffocating layers. His family beside him, Father, Mary, his brothers, all chattering like geese. To be counseled by Lewis, expand his knowledge of scriptures, while he carried his nephew in his arms. Home. Finding it impossible to open his mouth he extended his hand. Edward clung to him in understanding, both men ready to fly from this place. 

*

During the quiet moments, Edward often searched his hands. Twisting them over, massaging his cracked and torn skin with care. A bit of unearned affection. Only now did he realized Edward’s were as bad, the tips split and blackened with scabs. The thumbnail long shattered to leave a broken callus requiring its own attention. Scooting forward until their knees touched, John fumbled through his friend’s coat pocket until he found the glass jar. 

“Let me.” He did, his knotted knuckles rounded pebbles, each an ache he understood. “I do not smell like lavender.”

“Nor do I, not anymore.” 

Edward swept his attention between their linked hands and John. The lead in his body cooled and pressed a dull throb along his side, pushing under his ribs. At this moment his fingers held long-missed dexterity, tingling with the warmth he worked into Edward. His skin was pink in a flush not from an environmental burn. Even the hollowness in his eyes thawed, his heart’s flint struck with more than thanks. 

God may forgive, but to succumb in a way to think He was blind, to let a beguiling force into his soul; all he had left was himself and the wavering hope, an ebb and flow. Edward suffered the same, bodily, but his weight was different; John bore witness to a man taken somewhere else. Maybe his home was not grass and his family nor a stretch of water with well-mapped landmarks hovering in the horizon. John feared how he could lead the men, but this he could give. If anything, the Lord may bless his willingness to provide and forgive him when the sin was produced from love and selflessness. 

“She attended to all your needs. I cannot give you all you wish, but I am here.” Determined to guide him forward, to clear the questions from his eyes, John brought their joined fingers to his lips and sighed. The callused thumbnail was not soft, but it did not scrape either. He nodded when it began to trace a hesitant line along his chin, but turned away to expose his jaw to a searching mouth. 

Their warmth trapped humidity, layers shifted to expose enough, what was necessary. The position was uncomfortable as the rocks dug through the sleeping sack into his spine, grinding as Edward moved against his hip. When he moved to cup him, John tugged his hand away and did not let go. Though there was no shame in his softness, he did not wish to see disappointment or dull failure, only hope. 

The lead clunked in his body, but in Edward he only felt the rush of the ocean, his mop of hair neat as they stood on the deck, the sails guiding them home. 

*

If he shut his eyes and drifted for but a moment he was no longer here. Home again, the grass a green stretch, the wind fresh, the air mild carrying the sun. Edward squeezed his thigh and John returned. 

He returned. 

*

 

**Coda**

Beyond. Beyond the damage to his parts and the carved line into his scalp, his hands were incomplete. An ignoble end. 

He reached out and traced his cuticle. Pinched his nail bed hard though he knew, his stomach there on a crate covered with a bloody towel. 

The arm followed as he lifted his knuckles. No sweetness, only the salve, a herbaceous linger. _All shall live._ Unblinking dead eyes see all, through man to puncture the clouds to see the face of God. This became his sole comfort, a vision of John Irving cross-legged before God, joy radiating from his very being, illuminating the Heavens like a sun dog. 

His hands so very still.


End file.
